


Revolution

by landofdeparture



Category: Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIII Series
Genre: Birdwatching but it's Government Official Watching, Camping, Gen, Hope has a crush on Lightning but they do NOT get into a relationship he is a minor, Not Canon Compliant to XIII-2 or Lightning Returns, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:01:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27095467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/landofdeparture/pseuds/landofdeparture
Summary: Hope Estheim was sixteen years old, and Gran Pulse revolved around everything and anything but him.
Relationships: Hope Estheim/Lightning (One Sided)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I finished FFXIII like four days ago. I am extremely brainrot.  
> Side note, I wrote this in a Discord channel. Apologies for errors. >:)  
> Side side note, I can never comprehend more than, like, 30% of anything with a story. So if the canon parts of this are wildly incorrect, shoot me rn

A year after the beginning of the New World, the crystals had begun to fall. The world was dying.

It started in the great carnival city, New Nautilus, renamed and rebuilt in the outskirts of Oerba by homesick citizens who had survived the birth of a new civilization in Gran Pulse. A glittering shard of crystal, so large and bright that you could see the glare from miles upon miles away, had cracked into veins and broken off of the side of the crystal pillar. It descended quicker than anyone could've notice it had fallen, spewing tiny shards from its departure over the festival tents and onto the paved roads, and made its landing directly upon a young child. She was impaled and died instantly, her cotton candy sticking to her hot skin in the humidity and falling out of her limp hand once the crash had settled and all of the life was drained from her small body.

There was an uproar. After the first, more chunks of crystal (impossibly...too many parts of crystal) had begun to break off of the pillar from every angle, causing major destruction and more deaths wherever they landed. The people of Gran Pulse had prepared a sort of safety system, as ineffective as it was, in order to prevent further injuries upon the small population they had left. Workers--those in an organization recently named as the Crystalwatchers, as though they were looking for fires in a dry forest of twigs and brush rather than shards breaking off of a towering piece of crystal--were put on watch duty to monitor the state of the crystal pillar at all times. From Hope's knowledge (a.k.a., from Hope's incessant need to watch this process through his binoculars at every given moment of the day), the Crystalwatchers rotated positions every nine hours on the dot, likely in order to keep up with the orbit of the moon, which had a direct gravitational effect on the stability and balance of the pillar. Hope scoffed as he wrote this down in his journal, knowing their troubles were for nothing; moon patterns were unpredictable as all proper forces of the universe should be. Rotating positions based on the product of simple, estimated division based on spotty research would do both the people of Gran Pulse and the Crystalwatchers no good.

Hope did his own crystal monitoring. Call it a hobby, or call it by its official, albeit long and tongue twister-ey given name: Operation TEOTGWA, which stood for _"The End Of The Goddamn World, Again"_ , as Sazh had condemned it to be one night after watching a news report about a man who had been crushed by another piece of rock falling onto his own house.

"Didn't we already save the entire universe once?" Sazh had said, arms spread out in an arc. "And _this_ is our payoff? One year--which, by the way, we spent most of fighting off gigantic, blood-thirsty Gran Pulse flesh-eaters, and then we go back to wondering if we're gonna survive the night?"

Oerba taverns were always bustling with energy. Toasts of celebration from miners happy to have the weekend off, loud, obnoxious music from the jukeboxes that only played songs made within the time period they'd been on this plane of the universe--

"Damn, this song sucks," Snow had said. Hope agreed. He missed lyre tunes.

\--drunk men with pretty girls hanging off their shoulders in the corner booths, children playing on the tire swing on the big, purple palm tree outside, laughing with each other even knowing the world they were born in, the place they were supposed to grow up in was gone...

Tonight, there was none of it. Only an eerie silence welcomed him when he had first entered the building, along with Snow, Lightning, and Sazh, and Hope's tinnitus flared without the presence of another sound to block it out.

The aforementioned companions had downed a couple drinks already, courtesy of Lebreau, and Hope had been given a glass of freshly-grown Oerba coconut juice to _'satisfy his youthful need for a shot of something hard',_ as Snow had put it before slapping him on the back so hard Hope had to stifle a cough. 

He looked at his half-empty glass, swirling it around and watching the foggy liquid make a tiny tornado, which was as much amusement as he would be getting tonight. He sighed, put the glass down. Watched Snow and Sazh argue about the best Blitzball team, even though all of them knew it wouldn't matter in a couple weeks. None of them would get to play big league before they were crushed by the weight of the world, literally.

* * *

Hope Estheim was sixteen years old, and Gran Pulse revolved around everything and anything but him.

  
His binoculars had broken an hour into Crystalwatcher-watching as a result of him tripping over his own two clumsy feet and plunging down a hill into an abundance of brown brush. A bird egg had fallen out of a tree on impact and cracked on his shoulder, leaving him to dash away from an angry momma bird with as much dignity as he could with egg yolk dripping down his arm to his elbow and a nasty purple bruise on his ass. When he'd gotten back to his research site (although, it was really just a one person tent, a folding chair, a small bag of food and a paper and pencil lying on the ground), a crocodog was feasting on his produce.

Overall, it hadn't been a good day.

After he'd chased the crocodog off by throwing a stick in the opposite direction and washed his shirt in some gritty pond water, he'd sat down in his pathetic chair that stooped so low his butt was practically on the ground anyway and picked up his pencil and paper.

_Tuesday, September 9th. 001 AF. 4-ish P.M--I didn't bring my watch._

_**4:00.** Guard 0500 switches places with Guard 0700. No suspicious activity, unless you count Guard 0700 eating Guard 0500's sandwich while he wasn't looking._

_**4:02.** Guard 11037 sneezes so loud into his hand I can feel the vibrations from here. Gross. No other suspicious activity.**_

_**4:12.** Guard 2004 flips off an enforcer behind his back. Very suspicious activity indeed._

_**4:30-ish?** Crocodog came back bloodthirsty. I lost track of time._

_**4:56.** Guard 023 seems to give some sort of signal to Guard 69420, who then looks around at the other guards before they all leave their posts and return back into the facility. Extremely suspicious._

The Crystalwatchers didn't leave their posts. Ever. _The crystal pillar,_ as stated in Section 9 of Article 7 of Gran Pulse's Articles of Supreme Federation, _shall be monitored from bottom to top, from every angle, with esteemed Crystalwatchers stationed in every town and outskirt in order to preform punctual and detailed reports on the pillar's condition at every and any given point in the day. This includes: breakage, cracks, unusual illumination, unusual sounds and noises, 'rock climbers', possible intruders or miners outside of the structure, and in the worst case scenario, a complete breakdown. In the event that any of this happens, with exclusion of total destruction of the pillar from natural causes, they are to sound the alarm._

The third rotation of the Crystalwatchers on a Tuesday happened at exactly 1:00 A.M, exactly nine hours after the second rotation. Never once have they strayed. During an emergency one or two guards would leave to assist the higher powers in clean-up duty, citizen control, and even reporting deaths to family members who had lost someone to a _crystal mishap,_ as they liked to call it, like spending your single dying breath feeling the shock of a foreign object destroying every cell in your body was some sort of joke.

_Damn them. Damn them all._

Never once had they all left at once. There was no alarm. There was no announcement of a tragedy over the city speakers littered around Gran Pulse. There was no breakage--Hope would've heard it. There was no reason they should be leaving this early.

Hope grabbed his walkie-talkie. 

"Snow," he said, too close to the speaker. After a moment, the line crackled.

"Wassup, buddy."

"Code TEOTGWA."

"I will never learn how to pronounce that. Meet me at Maqui's workshop."


	2. Chapter 2

"They're on break."

"They're not on a break," Hope argued.

"The government won't put these soldiers to work for nine hours straight without reprieve. They're on a break." Snow took a bite of his piglin beef burrito.

"They're not!" Hope shouted, frustrated. "I've been watching their every rotation, their every move set since the Crystalwatchers were formed! Why would it change now?" 

Maqui revved an engine blade. "Change of power?"

"A couple months in? Now, that's stupid," Snow backed him up. "We would've heard about a new superior on the news. They report all that shit."

"That's what I'm _saying!_ " Hope said, gesturing with his hands. "They're a government one-off. They're only stationed until the threat of the pillar falling is eliminated. There's no reason for them to shift gears and be all secretive when it _says in the Articles--_ "

"What it _says in the Articles_ doesn't matter to our government, and you know it. It's all bullshit anyway."

"Are you trying to prove my point, Snow, or are you trying to debunk it?"

Snow took another bite. "I'm neutral. All I'm saying is that I think you're being a little...well..."

"Overreacting?" Maqui supplied.

"You did not just say that," Hope said, scandalized. Even Snow looked annoyed, furrowing his eyebrows and making a _'dude, shut up'_ look with his eyes. "You think I'm _overreacting?_ Sazh said it himself! We saved the world. We did the thing that heroes do. We completed our Focuses and Vanille and Fang sacrificed themselves for the greater good. Threat eliminated. But what if it _wasn't_?"

"Are you implying you think that...what? The Pulse fal'Cie still exists? And that its got a hold on our government?"

Hope shook his head. "No, of course not. The Pulse fal'Cie died with Cocoon. So did the l'Cie. I'm saying that--maybe, just maybe, there's still someone out to destroy Gran Pulse."

"The Crystalwatchers?" Snow asked, mouth full.

"Yes."

"That's a bit much."

"You're not listening to me."

Snow's eyes widened in exasperation and he swallowed quickly. "I'm listening fine." He got up from his chair and put his hands on the table. "Okay. I get it. You're scared. You lost both of your parents to the fal'Cie--to Cocoon. I did too. But living the rest of your life, especially the rest of your _teenage years_ in fear that someone or something will try to take them from you again? That's not living, Hope. That's letting what scares you most win."

"Of course I'm scared! It's all I know! It's all I've known since I was just a little kid!" Hope yelled, voice cracking. "You act like fear is just something that goes away with time! Fear kept me alive, Snow! Fear for Cocoon! Fear for my parents, my _dad_ after I had to leave him tied up and tell him to lie to his own government! Fear for Lightning and Sazh and Vanille and for _you!_ "

There was a prominent silence, and Snow took in a deep breath, about to speak. Hope held up his hand to stop him.

His voice was unsteady. "You think I just sit around all day watching these guys for the heck-- _the hell of it?_ "

"I think you're caught up in the moment," Lightning said, the first thing she'd said all night. Before this, she'd been quietly observing them in the corner of Maqui's workshop by Yuj and Lebreau, who were also silent save for the crunching of their snacks between their teeth. When Hope began to defend himself, Lightning shushed him. "I believe you."

Snow coughed. _"What?"_

Lightning uncrossed her legs, got up from the table. "Fang and Vanille's sacrifice eliminated the fal'Cie and Cocoon along with it. It didn't, however, eliminate all of Cocoon's people. There's a perfectly good possibility scum still roam Gran Pulse." She looked straight at Hope. "From experience; if Hope's scared about something, we should hear him out. I trust his judgement after how long we've been friends. Don't you?" 

Neither Snow or Maqui said anything, though Maqui went back to politely sharpening his blade in response. Snow finished his burrito and threw the greasy wrapper in the trashcan across the roam. He still didn't say anything.

Hope deflated. Anger was still high and present in his veins, pulsing adrenaline and nerves through every cell in his body and leaving him with the urge to throw a well-deserved punch at someone, but a tree would make do. It always did when Hope got like this.

  
Snow's blatant dismissal hurt him. After everything they'd been through together, after days and days of Hope's hatred for Snow spiraling out of control until he quite literally dangled Snow off of a ledge in his anger, after Snow had apologized again and again and cried to Hope about his own regret, his own fear, his own insecurities, his own nightmares of Hope's mother's hand slipping out of his grasp into the abyss...was it honestly all for nothing? At this moment, when Hope needed his approval, his backup the most? Did he lie when he said back on Cocoon that his number one priority was to protect Hope? Did he...why did he...

Hope didn't know.

Snow sighed. "Alright. What do you propose we do?"

Hope looked up, surprise clear on his face.

"You're gonna help me?"

"That's what I implied, isn't it, kid?"

Hope swallowed. "Maqui?"

Maqui clenched his teeth, bouncing his leg nervously in his seat. "...I...don't know..."

Lightning clicked her tongue and gave Maqui a hard stare that would scare most people away. "You'll help or we'll leave you in the rubble when the battle's over, deal?"

Maqui looked like a bobblehead when he shook his head in agreement. Hope grinned, pleased to have all hands on board.

"We start with more investigation. I'll station you guys on some lookout points so you can watch the compound from a safe distance. Yuj, Maqui, can you supply us with more binoculars?"

Yuj spoke up from the corner, clearing his throat. "If you promise not to crack any more of them," he said like a disappointed father. "We're not made of scope money." 

Hope chuckled nervously. "Promise. We'll keep logs. Anything else suspicious pops up, you report it to me. And then, once we have enough reason for suspicion..."

He bit his lip.

"We break in to Crystalwatchers Corp."


	3. Chapter 3

It's 2 P.M. the next week when Hope got a static response on his walkie-talkie.

He picked it up and held it away from his ear, trying to avoid the feedback noise adding to his already ringing ears.

"Anything?"

The static cleared. Lebreau was on the other line, and she was with Yuj and Maqui all watching the Crystalwatchers base from the Northern hill top Hope had selected for them.

"What time is it?"

Hope checked his watch, which he had finally remembered to bring after Snow had given him a swift bonk on the head for leaving the city without one. "Uh, two? In the afternoon?"

There's a snort on the other end of the line. " _Pshhh, 'in the afternoon',_ obviously I know it's the afternoon, the sun has been blocking my view for a fucking hour."

"Then why'd you call?"

"Maqui's bored."

A distant shout from the other end of the line: _"Am not!"_ And then a giggle from Lebreau, much closer to the speaker. Hope rolled his eyes and tapped his pencil against his paper, always peachy to have his friends goofing off in a time of utmost vigilance. 

"Anything else to add?" He said, fond annoyance creeping into his tone.

The walkie-talkie crackled once again and Hope flinched. "--eah. Get that stick out of your ass. We got suspicious activity at 2 P.M."

Hope nearly jumped out of his seat. " _What?_ Why didn't you just say that in the first place?"

"I had to ask for the time! Odin knows how much off a pain you are if we don't fill out our logs right, Mr. Commander." 

Hope pinched the bridge of his nose. "Suspicious activity where."

He could practically hear Lebreau smiling on the other end. There was a small noise as she likely asked for Yuj to read over their logs before she was back on the line and her chipper voice was directly in Hope's ear, as if she was right next to him.

"Northeast post, the one on top of the gigantic, hideously orange tower. Guard 707 handed off boxes marked with caution signs for explosives marked on them to another guard. His back was turned, so I didn't get his number, sorry." Hope winced. That would've been helpful. Badge number of the guy with the explosives.

"New shipments?"

"Likely."

"There's no shipments coming in from other towns today. It's not marked on the schedule."

"Aaaaand how do _you_ have a government issued shipping schedule?"

"Lightning has some very tight clothing and government men are nasty suckers."

There was obnoxious laughter from all three people on the other end. _"Man!"_ Yuj howled, and Maqui cackled with them until Hope could hear them gasping for air. He blushed violently.

Lebreau returned only after she'd finished her own giggle fest. "Aint that the fucking truth. Good to know. Make copies of those when you get back, huh?"

Hope nodded though Lebreau couldn't see him. "Yeah. You know what to do?"

"Logs, logs, and then more logs. Yes, I'm familiar with your over-the-top logging system."

"I was going to say follow the guard, but logs too."

"Yuj's on it. Well, not, y'know, physically, because he'd get shot for trespassing on government property, but you know what I mean. These are some swanky ass binoculars. I'm seeing different timelines."

Hope stifled a laugh. "Be careful. Watch where you're going. Report back if--"

"If anything else even vaguely suspicious happens, yeah, yeah. Goodbye, Hope."

"Time and guard number!" Hope said, but the line had already gone quiet on him. He wrote down what Lebreau had reported to him in his own notebook and tried to make a connection with what he already had down, but couldn't.

_Wednesday, September 17th. 001 AF. 12 P.M._

_**12:06.** Business as usual. Rotation happened two hours ago. Guards are where they're supposed to be. No suspicious activity._

_**12:43.** No suspicious activity yet._

_**1:20.** Guard 02838 took a_

Hope thought about how a guard taking a piss off of his tower wasn't actually something notable, and he erased it. Then he thought about how he'd actually looked closer to get a look at the guy's badge number to write this information down, and erased it even more, blushing furiously.

_**1:20.** Nothing. Absolutely...nothing._

Snow called him on the walkie-talkie at 2 P.M. on the dot to report an officer getting fired for pissing off of a tower and how _unbelievably funny_ it was (it wasn't), and Lightning had called in at 2:23 P.M. to check in on how Hope was doing.

"I'm doing alright, Light, thanks," he'd said. "Bit stuffy out here and there's nothing really going on." He rolled his aching shoulders, which were tired from being sat against the unsupportive back of his camping chair for a good two and a half hours. "I'm a bit tired."

"When you say you're _'a bit'_ tired, you usually mean you're exhausted," Lightning said from across the line. There's rustling and a crackling sound other than the bad feedback of the cheap walkie-talkie. Hope assumed she must be cooking something.

"Hungry?" He asked politely, mindlessly staring at the blank spaces on his journal.

 _"A bit,"_ She joked, and Hope wished he could be there to see her smile as she said it. "Just roasting some salamander."

"Sounds, uh, appetizing."

"No, it really doesn't."

There was a burning sensation in Hope's face, and he closed his journal.

Claire was stationed on the West corner of the square map Hope had drew in order to point out the hill tops they would all be staying on. The West side was the most scenic side, and Hope had knew that when he put her there, thinking she'd like it best. He wasn't one-hundred-percent sure, but the pleased eyebrow raise and slight upwards turn of her lips when she had gone to see it for the first time with Hope gave him the illusion that she wasn't as displeased by having to sleep in a tent as he thought she would be. 

Hope had made sure everyone had enough food to last them the entire day and then some. They wouldn't be leaving their stations for a good twenty-four hours, or for Hope and Lightning, who were the most dedicated to Operation TEOTGWA, even longer. Fruits, meats, a Gran Pulse native veggie and water were all neatly supplied in a crate as well as a good number of cooling packs in order to keep everything cold for an extended period of time. Claire had been cooking, which either meant she had already finished all of her food within a two hour timespan (which was highly unlikely, although she did have a great form), or she had gotten _really_ sick of the meaty burritos Snow had thrown in there. Hope thought the ladder.

"I'll have to try that later. Any news?"

There was a loud hissing, and then a barely contained _'fuck!'._ Hope furrowed his eyebrows.

"Light?" 

No response.

His heart skipped a beat. _"Claire?"_

"I'm--fine. Just spilled boiling water on myself." 

Hope breathed out but the tension still stuck in his shoulders. "You okay?"

Lightning groaned. "I can handle a little burn."

"There's nothing in your med kits for burns. I didn't expect you would have to boil water, sorry." Hope sympathized with Light having to be out there, alone, with a burned hand or a burned thigh or just generally being in bad health in any way. He got up.

"I said I'd be fine," Lightning said curtly, but the pain was evident in her voice.

"I'm...coming to get you."

She audibly sighed. "What? No."

"With all due respect, Light, I didn't ask." And there was silence. A very startled silence on Lightning's end, as she was trying to form words out of her mouth and they just refused to come out. Hope could just barely hear the aborted noises leaving her lips and he smiled at the thought of her looking like a fish out of water. "I'm the closest one to Maqui's workshop. I'll stop by and grab some aloe vera or something. And honey. Yeah," Hope said while getting up and grabbing his things. Lightning said something on the other end, but Hope wasn't listening. He looked up at the horizon, at the complex still standing strong and surrounded by dozens of yellow-cladded soldiers, and then he began to walk down his hill. "Bandages too."

"Jeez, when did you get to be such a grown up." Lightning said, voice crackling through the walkie-talkie. She had intended to sound annoyed, but Hope heard the gratefulness in her voice. "I can use my water to soothe it. Don't come."

"See you in a bit, Light."


	4. Chapter 4

Hope didn't know how Lightning had thought she was fine, she was absolutely not fine at all, with a burn like the one she had. Her pot had tipped over while she had bent over to get a better look at an animal between some trees and the water she was using the steam for to soften the salamander meat had spilled over her hand and onto her legs. It left her with thankfully-not-agonizing burns, but her skin was still ablaze and red and _itchy_ , she'd said. Most of the water had hit the dirt instead of Lightning's skin because of how fast the pot had tipped over, but she would still need a bit of medical attention.

"I brought cotton balls, aloe vera, water, some of this _really_ sweet smelling soap that Maqui made a couple weeks ago, sorry," (he knew she hated perfume-y soaps and perfume-y things in general) "honey, and a mandarin."

Lightning took the extra bottle of water from his hands and uncapped it. "Why the mandarin?"

"It's your favorite."

At that, she smiled, and Hope turned his head to hide his own.

Hope was right. Lightning hadn't eaten her entire supply of food within two hours, and she had, in fact, actually gotten sick over Snow's awful choice of burrito meat. Hope cursed himself for not bringing different food for her.

After washing her hand and legs thoroughly with now cold water and the awfully intense lavender soap Maqui had made, to which Lightning had plugged her nose, Hope opened the jar of aloe vera and scooped out a small portion. He rubbed his fingers together, warming it through, and started on her hand, where the burns were the most severe.

" _Ooooh,_ that feels nice," she said, tipping her head back, and Hope wasn't sure his face could get any redder. Lightning flicked his head.

"Ow!"

"Get your mind out of the gutter and put some more jelly on me."

Hope rolled his eyes and gathered another scoop, a big one, of aloe vera with three fingers and slathered it all over Lightning's hand and legs, to which she was extremely vocal about appreciating. He let her put it on the inside of her thighs by herself.

When he brought out the honey, she'd held up her hand. "No honey."

Hope blinked. "Why...?"

"It's sticky. And it'll just mix with the jelly and make a nasty concoction that I'll have to leave on my thighs forever. No honey."

Hope tilted his head in agreement. "Alright. Spread your legs a little bit--" He choked, blinked rapidly. "--So, so I can, uh, put, uhm, the bandages on..." His voice trailed off at the end. He refused to make eye contact while he put the bandages on, even careful not to stare too hard at Lightning's pale thighs, which were littered with stretch marks and small, white scars.

He finished up, using his thumb to smooth out the creases he had accidentally made in the final bandage while he wasn't looking. "There. Good as new, I hope?"

Lightning rose from her place on a log and used Hope's arm as support. Every hair on his arm stood up.

"Yeah, thanks. It's tight, but that's the point, isn't it?" She shifted her legs, put her thighs together and squeezed them, stretched her hands. "You really didn't have to come all this way just to tend to me. I'm not a little kid."

Hope was going to argue and say that it didn't matter if Lightning had a small cut or was missing half her arm, that he was still going to come rushing to her aid at every call for help or otherwise--but she spoke again before he could embarrass himself. "But...thank you. I appreciate your concern for me, Hope."

The lack of her usual nickname for him, the one that he hated but everyone used, the word kid, which made Hope feel like he was a twelve-year-old boy again holding hands with his first 'real' girlfriend, sent butterflies through his stomach.

He gargled a little bit in his mouth, half spitting out a reply in the time it took for his longing gaze at her face and his silence to get awkward.

"--No problem!"

After that, they'd sat and chatted amongst themselves for a bit. Lightning read over her log to him, which had zero of the humorous comments that his own usually had, and Hope read his own log to her in turn. Some of his commentary made her pop a chuckle while others just earned him a flat look. Hope smiled himself either way.

They ate the striped salamander together. It was a bit tough from being overcooked and not having enough time to properly absorb the steam of the boiling water before it made its sweet arrival on Lightning's skin, but it was surprisingly delicious nonetheless. Before her injury, Lightning had ventured down into the forest and grabbed a couple of herbs to top her meal with. Hope had taken the head, and Lightning had taken the tail, saying that staring into the dead creature's eyes while she ate it was never a favorite thing of hers. Hope hoped it wasn't a poisonous salamander as he swallowed the last bite.

It was getting late. The sun had set well beyond the horizon and stars were just starting to peak their lights out from the darkness of the sky. The journey from his post to Maqui's workshop to Lightning's location was no day's journey, but it certainly wasn't a short one. Especially when Hope's legs nearly gave out when he'd first sat down on the log Lightning had rested herself on. They still ached, even now.

"I'm gonna head back."

Lightning looked at him with a blank gaze. "You're kidding, right?"

Hope picked up his things. "No?"

"It's 10 P.M."

Hope gasped. "It is _not!_ " He checked his watch hurriedly and found that it was, in fact, 10 P.M. "Oh, man."

Lightning put out the fire with a splash of the leftover boiling water, which had long gone cold. "If you go now, you'll get yourself hurt. Or worse, killed," she said, wiping off the rest of the aloe vera from her legs and offering the empty bottle back to Hope for him to put in his bag. "Just stay the night with me."

"You know I can't do that."

Lightning raised her eyebrows. "Oh? And why not? Do tell."

Hope's shoulders dropped and he stared at her, hard. "You _know_ I can't do that."

"Why, because of your boy crush on me?"

Hope choked, eyes widening and cheeks flaring up. He dropped his bag to the ground, hands trembling with her accusation. "It's not-- _I'm_ not-- _I don't have a crush on you._ "

Lightning didn't even give him a glance. "Sure. Spare pillow's already in the tent." And she didn't give him room for further arguing before she grabbed her food bag and med kit and bent over to crawl into the tent.

A wolf howled in the distance.

Hope debated running off, he really did. Just running off straight in the direction of the nearest Gran Pulse baddie and letting them kidnap him, eat him, kill him, whatever. His heart might do it for him anyway, if the way it hadn't stopped pounding in his chest for a good couple of solid minutes told him anything. His eyes remained wide, staring expressionlessly into the dry dirt.

Hope Estheim was sixteen years old, and Gran Pulse revolved around everything and anything but him. But this moment?

He crawled into the tent.

* * *

His walkie-talkie buzzing insistently in his ear was what woke him up, not Lightning's screams of alarm outside the tent. He registered her outrage slowly before he came to, and he hurriedly stumbled out of the tent, eyes blurry and barely processing the difference in light yet. He answered the walkie-talkie as he saw Lightning rushing down the hill.

"Wh- _huh?_ "

_"The crystal pillar is fucking crumbling and you have the balls to answer like you don't know what's going on?!"_ Lebreau's voice echoed loudly in his ear.

Hope's breath left his body. He looked up.

The crystal pillar was falling down. All of it.


End file.
